Champions are Made, but…
Coach Phil and I had a little bit of a debate this past weekend after seeing “Champions Aren’t Born; They’re Made” written on the wall at one of the high schools. Phil said that he disagrees with that statement because he believes some people are born with a champion’s mindset, while others are not. There is a tremendous amount of truth in his argument, but I did not agree with it completely.
Early in my coaching experience, I had a coach tell me that travel players are born travel players; that they are hardwired to compete at that level. That was a statement that kind of offended me at the time because it indicated that if a kid was cut from a travel team, it meant that they could never be that level player because it just wasn’t in them. The longer I have coached, the more I agree with that coaches statement, BUT, I now understand that a kid may be hardwired to be a competitor, but they are just not skilled enough yet to compete at the level that their mind is capable of competing. They just need to be taught the skills, while others are simply not hardwired to compete at a high level at all. Further, I firmly believe that champions are born with a different mindset; one that lets them embrace adversity, and push through because they really want to be the best.
I really need to distinguish between someone who hates losing and someone who truly wants to be great. No one likes to lose, NO ONE, because no one likes to have negative things happen to them. So just because you or your child hates losing does not mean they are a competitor. We all want comfort, success, happiness, etc. so, everyone wants (small letters) to win. But those who really WANT (ALL CAPS) to win; to be a champion; to be the greatest, are a different breed of person. The ones who WANT (ALL CAPS) to be champions are the ones who are driven to do everything they can to complete their mission. These are the ones who embrace hard work (not just posts on social media), adversity, and sacrifice to beat someone else in competition. I shared with my high schoolers last night that being faster is not about instantly being the fastest. It’s about working harder to catch the next person in front of you, then repeating this over and over until you are faster than as many others as possible.
I have shared my story of how I learned to play basketball with several of my teams through the years. I was late to basketball; not starting to even shoot a ball until 7th grade. Growing up, my friends and I collected baseball cards. We would go to card shows, stores, etc., and trade cards of our favorite players with each other. My favorite player growing up was Dale Murphy of the Atlanta Braves (who, BTW, belongs in the Hall of Fame), and therefore my favorite baseball card was his rookie card, which was back then rather valuable. There was another kid in the neighborhood named Jamey who was known to have the best card collection. Unknown to me, he was also the neighborhood swindler, who grew up to be a lawyer (go figure), who would con kids out of their baseball cards. Jamey was a couple years older than me, and invited me over to his house to trade cards. We went out in his back yard and started shooting his basketball at his rim. For a beginner, I thought I did ok. So he introduced me to a shooting game called 21 Two Bounce, which relied heavily on making free throws. Surprisingly, I won the first two games. So Jamey suggested we play the next game for a baseball card. Not an expensive one, just something to make it more interesting. Believe it or not, I lost that game. Then we went double or nothing, and as you can imagine, I lost that one too. By the end of the day, I had lost my Dale Murphy rookie card and was beyond upset.
I went home, sulked for a few minutes, then set my mind on getting my favorite card back. The very next day, one of my neighbors had thrown out an old basketball rim in their trash (Divine Providence), so I grabbed it and took it home. I then found a scrap of plywood that I cut to make a backboard, and rode my bike 2+ miles to Builders Square to purchase a 4" x 4” x 12’ treated lumber stud that I carried those same 2+ miles back home on my bike to use as the post for my new basketball hoop. People driving along Plymouth Rd must have thought I was crazy. My mom had no idea what was going on because I never told her what had happened. This was my problem and my fight. I dug a hole in her back yard, installed the pole, erected my new hoop, and began working on my shooting. That summer I was out in my back yard for hours at a time. I would be out there until it was too dark to see, so I went back to the store and bought new lights for the back of her house and installed them so I could shoot after dark. Yes! An 8th grader to be doing electrical work… About a month after my initial beating, I felt like I was ready to start getting my cards back. That summer was spent moving from backyard court to backyard court playing 21 Two Bounce for basketball cards against a few older kids. By the end of the summer I had not only won back all my cards that I had lost, but Jamey had to make multiple trips to my house with big paper grocery bags containing ALL of his cards that he had accumulated over the years. They were ALL now mine. In high school I shot over 80% from the free throw line, and never felt any pressure shooting a free throw because I knew it was going in.
The first group of kids I shared this story with was my 9U Canton Cardinals. I was met with mixed responses. Most got the point, but one kid seriously responded with “Coach, how long have you had a gambling problem?” That is funny, but clearly he did not get the point. Losing, or adversity should never result in giving up or in a pity party. Losing/adversity are the fuel that burns within champions giving them the energy they need to outwork everyone else. I often say that good is the enemy of great, because if you are experiencing minor success (you are good), there isn’t much incentive to work hard enough to be great. But losing, failure and adversity... Champions will work relentlessly to avoid ever experiencing that again. Michael Jordan was so offended by being cut from the varsity basketball team as a freshman that he never let it go. It was the giant chip on his shoulder that drove him to prove everyone wrong throughout his career. He became arguably the greatest basketball player of all time, and when he was being inducted into the hall of fame, he invited his high school coach and the kid who made the team in front of him to the ceremony. In his speech, he called out his coach and asked if the coach still thought he made the right decision. That was kind of a jerk move, but that chip gave him an edge.
I share these stories to ask “what is fueling you?” Getting back my Dale Murphy rookie card fueled me to get good enough at shooting a basketball to beat Jamey and everyone else. It gave me a laser focus, and I would not trade that experience or that summer for the alternative of having never lost it. Is there something you REALLY want? Do you REALLY want to play in college, start varsity, play varsity? Do you really want to help build a championship team, or do you just want to be on a team that is already great without you? Remember, If it’s good enough to be a championship team already, it doesn’t need you. What are you willing to sacrifice to be great? You can’t be great at something without sacrificing something else. If someone tells you that’s not true, they are lying. Do you have a plan? Are you sitting around waiting for someone else to fix your problem, or are you starting right now right where you are? It won’t just happen.
Wrapping this up, I argued to Phil, that while some people are born with a champion’s mindset, and others just are not, those born with the champion’s competitive mindset still need to choose to put in the work, therefor Champions ARE Made, while Losers are Both Born and Choose to BE. This may sound harsh. If you disagree, use it as your fuel and prove me wrong.
